In Greek mythology, the Danaïdes (/dəˈneɪ.ɪdiːz/; Greek: Δαναΐδες), also Danaides or Danaids, were the fifty daughters of Danaus. In the Metamorphoses,^[1] Ovid refers to them as the Belides after their grandfather Belus. They were to marry the 50 sons of Danaus' twin brother Aegyptus, a mythical king of Egypt. In the most common version of the myth, all but one of them killed their husbands on their wedding night and are condemned to spend eternity carrying water in a sieve or perforated device. In the classical tradition, they came to represent the futility of a repetitive task that can never be completed (see also Sisyphus and Ocnus).

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Danaus did not want his daughters to go ahead with the marriages. He fled with them in the first boat to Argos, which is located in Greece near the ancient city of Mycenae. Danaus agreed to the marriage of his daughters only after Aegyptus came to Argos with his fifty sons to protect the local population, the Argives, from any battles. The daughters were ordered by their father to kill their husbands on the first night of their weddings, and this they all did except for one, Hypermnestra, who spared her husband Lynceus because he respected her desire to remain a virgin. Danaus was angered that his daughter refused to do as he ordered and took her to the Argives courts. Lynceus killed Danaus as revenge for the death of his brothers, and he and Hypermnestra started the Danaid Dynasty of rulers in Argos. In other versions of the myth, Danaus himself united Hypermnestra and Lynceus instead.^[2]

The other 49 daughters buried the heads of their bridegrooms in Lerna and paid funeral honors to their bodies in front of the city. The gods Athena and Hermes purified them at the command of Zeus. Afterward, they remarried by choosing their mates in footraces (or their father bestowed them to the victors of the athletic contest^[2]). Some accounts tell that their punishment in Tartarus was being forced to carry a jug to fill a bathtub (pithos) without a bottom (or with a leak) to wash their sins off. Because the water constantly leaked, they would forever try to fill the tub. This myth is probably connected with a ceremony concerning the worship of waters, and the Danaïdes were water-nymphs.

Several minor female characters mentioned in various accounts unrelated to the central myth of Danaus and the Danaïdes are also referred to as daughters of Danaus. These include:

• Archedice, along with her sister Helice and two others, chosen by lot by the rest, had founded the temple of Lindian Athene where they made offerings on Lindos in Rhodes.^[27][28]
• Anaxithea, mother of Olenus by Zeus.^[29]
• Amphimedusa, mother of Erythras by Poseidon^[30]
• Astyoche, a nymph who was called the mother of Chrysippus by Pelops.^[31]
• Eurythoe, one of the possible mothers of Oenomaus by Ares;^[32] alternatively, mother of Hippodamia by Oenomaus^[33]
• Hippe, who, like her sister Amymone, gave her name to a freshwater source^[34]
• Hippodamia, mother of Olenus by Zeus.^[35] (Maybe the same as the above Anaxithea)
• Isonoe or Isione or Hesione, mother of Orchomenus^[36] or Chryses^[35] by Zeus.
• Kamira
• Phaethusa, one of the possible mothers of Myrtilus by Hermes^[32][37]
• Phylodameia, mother of Pharis by Hermes^[38]
• Physadeia, who, like her sister Amymone, gave her name to a freshwater source^[34]
• Polydora, nymph-mother of Dryops (Oeta) by the river god Spercheus^[39]
• Side, mythical eponym of a town in Laconia^[40]

The Daughters of Danaus is also the title of an 1894 novel by Mona Caird, also dealing with imposed marriage although, in this case, it is a single marriage instead of 50, and in 19th-century Great Britain.

In 1910,^[41] the Hungarian poet Mihály Babits published his poem The Danaids, translated into English by Peter Zollman^[42] and István Tótfalusi.^[43]

Magda Szabó's 1964 novel, A Danaida (The Danaid), is about a woman who lives selfishly for two-thirds of her life without realizing that even she can change the course of history.

Le châtiment des Danaïdes is an essay by the French-Canadian author Henri Paul Jacquesthe applying the Freudian concept of psychoanalysis to studying the punishment imposed on the Danaïdes after they committed their crimes.

In Monday Begins on Saturday, it is mentioned that the Danaïdes had their case reviewed in modern times, and, due to mitigating circumstances (the marriage being forced), had their punishment changed to laying down and then immediately demolishing asphalt.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Danaides.

• Names of the Greeks (Danaans)
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